


It's a Great Big World (She's Just Another Girl)

by teamnicedynabitch



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Angst, F/M, Post-Break Up, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24173848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamnicedynabitch/pseuds/teamnicedynabitch
Summary: Support comes in many forms, he knows that, but being told by his friends that he’ll move on doesn’t help when he’s not ready to. Promising someone something they don’t want isn’t the way to fix things. This isn’t even something that can be fixed. Not by them, at least.(Based on Just Another Girl by The Killers)
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru/Reader
Kudos: 13





	It's a Great Big World (She's Just Another Girl)

Sitting in the locker room, the dam he’d built starts to break again, and he tries his best to keep it in place, to stay stable. He’s here to play volleyball. He needs to get you out of his mind.  
“Oikawa?” That’s his name. Isn’t it? It doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t feel a connection to it, not anymore. He doesn’t feel a connection to much these days. Not when you’re not here. “Oikawa!”  
“What?!”  
“The games about to start.” Oh, right. He’s a volleyball player. Hadn’t he just thought about that? How did he forget? You’d always supported his career, he still has pictures of you in his jacket, holding a sign with his name. He wonders if you think about him. If you see a match on TV and wonder how he’s doing, if you search his name sometimes to catch up on his progress. If you still care, like you used to when you belonged to him, when you didn’t have someone else’s ring on your finger.  
“Are you sure you’re okay to play?”  
“I’ll be fine.” He doesn’t mean it, doesn’t believe it, and when he steps on the court his usual persona doesn’t come to him. It’s like you took Oikawa with you, left him as lonely, broken Tōru. He can barely register the game. When he serves the ball he doesn’t feel it hit his hand, the yells of the crowd don’t reach his ears. The next thing he processes is that he’s staring at the ceiling, and he’s not sure why. A face comes into his field of vision, filled with concern, words he can’t hear spilling from his mouth. Does his knee hurt? He must have fallen on it. Why doesn’t he care? Is he really that broken? 

“It’s like you weren’t even present in the game. What’s going on with you?” Iwaizumi’s glare burns into the side of his head as he stares upwards. Tōru hadn’t even realised he was in the country. Perhaps he’d come to see him play, flown all this way, and he’d disappointed his friend- just like he’d disappointed you. So many times he’d disappointed you. That’s why you left, right? “Oikawa.” Iwa doesn’t sound angry, Oikawa knows his angry voice, but the concern laced into his voice is worse than anger.  
“I miss her, Iwa.”  
“You miss-…who?”  
“Y/N.”  
“Still?  
”“What do you mean _still_?”  
“Its been 2 years. This isn’t healthy, Tōru.” It’s been a long time since he heard his given name from his best friends mouth. “It’s time to move on.”  
“What, like she did?”  
“Are you mad at her for that?”  
“No! No, I’m not I just… All I do is think about her and she’s out there planning a wedding that isn’t ours.”  
“You’ll find someone. Someone you’re meant to marry.”  
“Did that really just come out of your mouth?”  
“I’m trying to help you, dumbass.” He doesn’t say anything else. Talking about it hurts too much. It’s the only thing that does hurt anymore. He never thought he’d miss other types of pain. 

Next time he’s in Japan, he can’t help but drive past your house. It’s stupid, he knows it is, but he finds himself on your street before he knows it. Your bicycle isn’t in the driveway and neither is _his_ car, and the fact that you’re not home brings him no comfort. Maybe you’re working, you always loved your job. He can so easily recall the glint in your eyes as you talked about it, the extra hours you dedicated to it until you were so exhausted you ended up crying in his arms, desperate for rest that you wouldn’t allow yourself. He wonders if you still do that, if you cover other people’s shifts until you’ve gone 15 days without a day off and you can barely stand, if you still have a whole cabinet in that house dedicated to coffee. He doesn’t know how long he’s sat here, mind wandering. He desperately wants to know if you’re still the girl he knew two years ago. The girl he did nothing but let down; the girl he stood up time after time, who he never told he loved enough, who he was never really there for. He drove you away, he knows that. He’s probably better alone, he can’t ruin things if it’s just him. He wishes he could handle being by himself. He knows he can’t. A car horn sounds behind him, and he realises where he is. Maybe he’s not in the right mindset to be driving. He makes his way home regardless, somehow without zoning out again. 

The house feels empty, as it has for the past 2 years. Sometimes he still expects you to be there, reading on the couch or sleeping hunched over the desk in the study. Things lack colour now, and that isn’t a metaphor. Your purple and yellow blanket no longer lives on the armchair in the corner, none of the painted photo frames you’d put on the walls remained. Everything about you had been bright, and without you it was like he’d been plunged into an endless night. How could he move on, knowing he’d never see the sunlight again?

3 weeks after what would’ve been your 4 year anniversary, Oikawa finds himself at the house of a lady who claims to be a fortune teller. He doesn’t know if he believes in it, he thinks he probably doesn’t, but- well, desperate measures and all that. After all, who’s to say it’s not real? He believes in aliens, maybe he can find it in himself to believe in this too. Although, even aliens have lost some of their appeal. Too many memories tied to you for that. He almost wishes he could erase you from his mind, reclaim the things he shared with you as his own, but he doubts that would dull the emptiness in his heart. When she tells him he’ll move on, that there’s happiness and love in his future, that the pain she senses in him (she says this as if she figured it out, but it’s not that much of an epiphany considering he told her about it when he first sat across from her) will ease- well, he really tries to believe her. The truth is, he’s not sure he wants to move on. It’s not like he _can’t_ let you go, he’d just rather have you back. The whole ordeal leaves him a little disoriented, if he’s being honest, and suddenly he finds himself at home again with almost no memory of leaving her house.

Time seems to move differently these days, but there’s no consistency to that change. Some days he gets in the shower and finds himself at the table 3 days later, food he doesn’t even remember cooking sat in front of him. Other days he lies in bed for weeks on end, but when he looks at the clock only 5 minutes have passed. He’s not sure what changed- perhaps it was him. Maybe he’s losing his grip on reality. Then again, he doesn’t know if he ever had one in the first place, and that’s probably why he’s so lost without you. You were the only stability he ever really had. It’s hard to believe that the world moves on, that you moved on. All those trips you planned, the dreams you shared with him, the late night talks and the existential crises and the way you’d sometimes crack an egg on the back of his head while you were baking just to laugh when you watched him go red- those moments weren’t his anymore. They were never really his at all, just something you let him be a part of. His access to your life had been cut off so suddenly, and quite frankly he feels he’d rather have lost access to his own. 

When he gets an invitation to the wedding of one of his team members, he tries to quell the pang of guilt as he stashes it in a drawer and tries not to cry. He probably won’t go. Is it rude to miss the happiest moment of someone’s life because he’s heartbroken? It’s probably ruder to have a mental breakdown at someone elses wedding, and he’s not sure he can handle such a painful reminder of something he never got to do with you. He wonders why they’re getting married so fast, and then realises that it’s not really that fast at all. Time is actually moving for the rest of the world, it’s just Tōru who’s stuck in the past. Sometimes he wakes up to a cold bed and wonders why you’re not there, searching for you until it hits him that you left and he falls apart all over again. But when he looks back on your relationship and finds nothing but his flaws- he can’t bring himself to blame you for not sticking around. 

Your biggest point of contention could have been so easily fixed. The countless arguments, the nights you spent on the couch, the anger and betrayal in your voice when you would ask him about it- whether he told the truth or not. Your brother was a kid, _is_ a kid, and honestly what kind of 24 year old fights with his girlfriends 16 year old brother? He wants to cry when he thinks about it. He pops up sometimes in your social media posts _(and Tōru knows he shouldn’t check them but he can’t help himself- he needs proof you’re still out there, that you didn’t leave the world like you left him)_ , in family vacations and wedding planning posts and a particularly tear jerking message to him when he got into the University he wanted, and if Tōru could apologise for the relationship he’d had with him, if he could give him all the love and luck in the world and be the older brother you’d begged him to try and be- well, maybe things wouldn’t be so bad right now. Your fiancé- the word brings bile rising to his throat like a sickly tidal wave- seems to get on with him well, and that just drills even more holes in his already hollow heart. 

“You know, you could get any girl you wanted.” Mattsun offers, not so helpfully, when it’s been nearly 3 years and he’s still heartbroken. The engagement ring he’d bought you just before the breakup- the one he never gave to you- is stashed in the drawer next to his bed. Theyknow it’s still there.  
“Yeah, dude, you’ll find someone else. There’s like a million people in the world-”  
“Try 7 billion.“  
"Listen- nobody said I was smart,” Makki points at him like he’s debating something when he says this, and it’s fairly obvious that he’s more than a little drunk. They’ve all had their fair share, run up a tab that would make a sailor faint, but Oikawa couldn’t feel more sober if he tried. “But I’m trying to help you here. My poi- my point _is_ \- well. Why are you so hung up on her? She’s just- she’s another girl, you know? Plenty of fish and all that. Unless fish aren’t your thing.”  
“Why would fish be his thing?”  
“I don’t know man, I’m hammered.”  
“We all are. But you know, he’s right! She clearly wasn’t the one for you- you just gotta find the one who is.”  
“I don’t- have either of you considered that she _was_ the one for me, but I wasn’t the one for her? You think after nearly three goddamn years of missing her I haven’t tried? I _can’t_ move on. She’s all there ever was for me and she’s- she probably doesn’t even think about me.” The two men in front of him share a glance before Mattsun stands up.  
“Come on. You gotta get home, get some rest.” With one of their arms hooked around each of his, the two of them help him home. 

When they enter his house- for the first time in a long while- they make no effort to hide their shock.  
“Jesus Christ dude.” Makki whispers.  
“When was the last time you cleaned?”  
“I don’t know.” He admits, but he’s too numb to be ashamed. It’s not like it’s dirty, per se. He throws his trash away, and does his dishes and laundry, but he doesn’t put books back, his furniture has been rearranged 4 times this week alone and-  
“Are you sleeping in the living room?”  
“I- I can’t sleep in the bed anymore. It’s too cold without her.” He thinks the sympathy on their faces makes him feel worse than when they were telling him to get over you. When they finally leave, he sits on his pile of blankets and pillows, their words running through his mind. 

If you were just another girl, he’d have moved on by now. He’d be able to sleep for more than an hour at a time, he wouldn’t wake up crying after dreaming of you. He wouldn’t feel the weight of exhaustion seeping into his bones with every step he took. Nights wouldn’t be restless and painful, spent wishing he could turn back time until he got it right. 

If you were just another girl the world would look the way it used to. Colours would still be bright, sunsets would bring him joy, he’d still go U.F.O watching at 3am. The moon wouldn’t be distorted by his tears when he sat in the yard and stared at it- for hours or for seconds he was never sure. He’d still live in the world, rather than simply observing it’s changes like a lost ghost. He’s not dead- at least, he’s pretty sure he isn’t- but nothing he touches seems to move the way it used to, none of his emotions seem like they belong to him anymore. 

If you were just another girl, he wouldn’t be _here_. He wouldn’t be sat in front of the TV, wondering why he can’t hear it. If the sound is off, he can’t bring himself to care enough to change that. Sometimes real people talk to him and he wonders why they’re muted. Sometimes he wakes up halfway through the day- already going about his life but with no memory of anything before that moment. Sometimes it feels like he’s watching himself through the TV he wastes so much time in front of. He wonders if he’s depressed. He forgets what he was thinking about before he can come to a conclusion.

It’s a great big world, and you’re just another girl, but to Oikawa Tōru you’re the only one in it worth anything. And it seems like you’re the only one in it who wants nothing to do with him. He’s stopped trying to get used to that. 


End file.
